AN: I don't think I'll ever forgive Gundam00 for not putting these two together...the Feldt thing was just too rushed. Ah well, here's my little ode to my favorite (second favorite?) pairing! Marina POV to come out later!
I don't own Gundam 00, its character or anything else you may recognize!
It was a night much like any other; quiet, though Setsuna now recognized such fleeting stillness. He would have only moments to indulge himself, to cater to the one selfish desire, a single thought, he guarded with his every action.
Marina Ismail.
He needed to see her again.
And so he had. Stealing away from his hotel hundreds of miles away, to be here, as close as the Gundam Meister ever allowed himself.
He stood silently by her open window, torn between his emotions and his actions. His heart had led him here, his body had resisted. With every step he had tried to betray himself – a footstep too loud, an improperly executed jump from roof-top to balcony. Already he could feel the ache of his shoulders as he stood too rigidly just within the confines of the Princess's room.
Why had he found himself here yet again?
The ever silent Meister struggled as whether to be relieved or upset at his ability to be here. To have arrived here unchallenged, to have slipped past nearly twenty guards without their notice spoke as much about his own skill as it did of her vulnerability.
Taking several steps closer to where she slept, the ex-child soldier allowed himself a glimpse of the long blue-black hair and delicate features that seemed forever burned into his mind. Was she truly such an easy target that he could arrive here, night after night, intruding without consequence?
What would happen to her if he had been any other man?
Unbidden, the image of his old mentor came to him, no doubt Ali Al-Saachez, was capable of a cruelty that was near alien to most of humanity. As if to shake of the chill that had so suddenly settled around him, Setsuna allowed himself a step closer to her bed, close enough to brush the soft gauze of her canopy and hear her gentle breathing.
He shouldn't go closer; moving further away would have been a smarter choice, a tactical decision in his favor.
And yet, to watch her sleep, if just for a moment more seemed like the greatest of reprieves. As if the world had, for once, found the peace he so desperately fought for. He couldn't explain it, doubted he would ever admit to anyone else how much he would sacrifice to remain this way. But he wanted to stay by her side, to walk beside her though the distance between them should grow.
She had once said that they both wished for the same thing though they walked different paths. He didn't doubt her words, didn't doubt that she believed them and that he agreed. Diplomacy would forever be useless to him. But in this moment, watching her as he was, it almost seemed as if they were, if just for a moment, standing on the same path, together.
"Setsuna?"
The soft flutter of dark lashes against pale skin pulled his attention away from his thoughts and to the woman struggling to remove the deep tendrils of sleep that still kept her head pillowed on her arms. She had awoken only a few times when he visited, and each time had prompted him to reiterate the fact that he had no business being here.
"Go back to sleep, Marina Ismail."
Her name flowed softly from his lips, tender though he had given her an order. Remaining by her bedside for a moment longer, the youngest Gundam Meister watched as she fell beneath his spell once more, her delicately fringed eyelids growing heavy with sleep though she struggled against it.
"Sleep…"
Almost unbidden, his hand came up to brush a stray hair away from her cheek, lingering as he felt the warmth of her skin and the smooth crest of her cheek. Realizing his mistake, Setsuna locked his jaw and quickly pulled his hand away.
And yet, despite his error, he found it impossible to completely leave her, stopping just short of the window that had become his only entrance into her world. Years of fighting, or losing friends and finding himself forever on the battlefield lay just outside. But right there, beneath a wispy cover of angora lay the only person who had suggested otherwise.
Peace.
Asleep once more, Marina looked more like a girl rather than the woman he knew she was. A kind soul, one of the very few he had ever encountered. She had remained true to herself despite the battles that had come to ravage her homeland, wound her people and challenged her beliefs.
An ideal that suggested peace could be found through peaceful means.
She bore the emotional wounds to prove that not everyone agreed with her, but physically remained unblemished. He had protected her thus far, as best as he could, from the shadows that lurked within her own palace to those that threatened from beyond the great walled gardens. But that time was quickly coming to an end. He could sense it as one senses a storm by the distant rumbling of thunder and not the crash of lightning.
And when at last he turned to her in farewell, the tear on her cheek gave him pause. Setsuna was not fool enough to confuse tears with weakness, but her question seemed to hang in the air between them.
"I'll be back," he murmured as he committed her image to memory one final time, "Marina Ismail."
His letter arrived only a week later, her name the first words on the page.
Written in a beautiful flowing script so unlike his usual precise manner, the questions he asked, the ones left unanswered made her cry as she read them. Again and again she read, until it seemed as if she could almost hear his voice as he murmured in her ear.
He was gone.
And though she remembered his promise, kept the letter tucked in the pocket of her gown without fail, it would be four years before she would see him again.
END